Lost & Found

July '08

Feature Article from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car

ROADSTER REGRETS
Dick Armstrong of Williamsville, New York, once owned an unusual sports car, a 1948 Triumph 1800 Roadster. "But like a fool, I sold it," he admits. Now, he's trying to find it so that he can buy it back.

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Dick bought the car in 1957, right after his military service ended. He had been shopping for a Jaguar XK120, but fell instead for the right-hand-drive Triumph with its upright chrome grille, bulbous fenders and rumble seat. The car had originally been finished in a metallic green, but was painted a metallic gray when Dick bought it for $1,250--a little more than half the price of a brand-new MGA.
When he moved from New York to New Jersey in 1960, he tried to bring the Triumph with him. But the state's motor vehicle registry turned thumbs-down on the Roadster's headlamps, which did not meet state regulations. Dick sold the car to a Chevrolet dealer in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. "I couldn't find anyone who wanted the doggone thing," he laughed. "The Chevy dealer wanted me to trade it in on a Corvair." He took the cash instead, and never saw the Roadster again.
Just 4,500 examples of the 1800 and its 2-liter successor, the 2000 Roadster, were built, and they're seldom seen today. Dick's car wore chassis number TRD1905, and its engine was numbered TRD1914E. "I have no idea of where it is, or if it exists, for that matter," he said. Know where it is? Make Dick's day by sending us an e-mail.
TOO BIG FOR CARRY-ON
Reader Bill Borden of Hanover, Indiana, sent in these photos of a car that's had him puzzled for nearly 30 years. He writes: "My wife and I were in California in the late '70's for the Monterey Historics and visited a marina on the southeast side of San Francisco. Sitting next to a Dumpster was this body shell. No chassis, suspension, interior, or anything else, just what you can see in the photo. At this point, I can't tell you if it was steel or aluminum, but it wasn't a fiberglass copy. Is it a Cisitalia (no ports on the fender) or something similar? There was no one around to shed any light on its reason for being there. I hope it was waiting to be trucked off to a restoration shop to be reunited with the rest of its components and not sitting there because it wouldn't fit into the Dumpster. If it had fit into my luggage, I would have rescued it."
The shape suggests Cisitalia, but the details raise doubts--there's the lack of the front fender vents, which Bill mentions, and the round buttons for door latches where the Cisitalia would have used a thin, horizontal lever that was flush with the body side when not in use. Bill reports that he went over the car as thoroughly as he could without opening anything, but could find no clues to its identity. "Something in the back of my mind tells me there was an M.G. with a Cisitalia look-alike body, but can't find a photo," he writes. Send your best guesses, informed or otherwise, to us here at Lost & Found.

This article originally appeared in the July, 2008 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car.